Telegraph View: The vast majority of British people still send
Christmas cards, which can only be a good thing

Despite the popularity of social media, 88 per cent of British people still send Christmas cards, we report today. Indeed, they send quite a few – an average of 29 each. And the custom is holding up surprisingly well among those aged 18-24, three-quarters of whom post such cardboard greetings, with their robins or Nativity scenes by Old Masters. A print-out of e-greetings doesn’t seem quite the same, with its tendency to appear in false colour and flop flaccidly from the shelf. At 53p for second-class postage, some people will pay more for the stamp than card. Yet 1d must have seemed a hefty sum to post the first cards in the 1840s. In Christmassy questions, habits get fossilised. When else do we boil puddings, hang up greenery or listen to a speech by the Queen? It may die one day, but the 170-year-old Christmas card still dives youthfully through millions of letterboxes.